If Ronnie O'Sullivan can win 7 out of the remaining 12 frames today, he'll qualify for the snooker final a day early and the Beeb will have hours to fill.

Moyles and Evans were clearly defined 'brands', though - and that is where GMB is struggling to make its mark. Recycling GMTV/Daybreak has-beens makes its brand look old hat - the likes of Garraway, Peters, Arnold and King should never have been let anywhere near the show.

Thursday 1st May - Soap Overnights

Emmerdale - 6.13m (32.6%) (+1: 117k)
EastEnders - 7.22m (35.8%) (BBC Three: 465k)
Emmerdale - 5.85m (26.4%) (+1: 250k)

Emmerdale got the exact same shares as last week, actual ratings were up though. EastEnders down a bit in both rating and share, but still an great share compared to the past few months.

I assume ITV thought they were branding it with Ms. Reid, all the while failing to notice that the bloom was fading from that rose for a while now, the fat pay-packet just adding to the public`s diminishing interest in this preening, gurning, orange woman.

This is certainly part of the problem. But if they were branding it with her, why allow her to behave so strangely on-screen? Baffling. And, thankfully, not my problem to sort!

And why then be so wedded to the 4 presenters in a row format that undermines her supposed pole-position status? It`s almost as if no-one at ITV has a bloody clue!

Do you run her fan club by any chance?

I used to until she started to read and believe her own press!

It doesn't need 4 presenters all at once. The desk needs to go as well. Reid is the big signing and she's hidden amongst a group, too many things from previous breakfast shows in terms of presenters and contributors.

Should have started with a clean slate of presenters.

Certainly something of an improvement for GMB, 100k up yesterday (740,000 according to The Mirror). That's a significant rise after Wednesday's figure. Hopefully something to build on, and certainly a bit of good news.

Slow and steady wins the race, of course. I'm very hopeful that the show continues to rise - its an energetic format, very bright and light. BBC Breakfast seems very dull in comparison.

All subjective, of course - but at least BBC Breakfast doesn't have the ghosts of breakfast TV past being recycled for no good reason …

Not really. They have to show all the PPBs in identical timeslots, otherwise the parties will understandably complain. PPBs are less than five minutes long, anyway, so they could perfectly easily have cut away and resumed straight after, perhaps on a time delay. The problem was the decision to show the Eggheads repeat instead of going back to the snooker.

The new afternoon line up is a bit of a car crash. to be frank

Here's ITV from 1pm - 6pm

Loose Women - 700k
News - 700k
Jo Frost - 600k
Dickinson - 700k
Ejector Seat - 1m
POG Show - 1.7m

And here's BBC1

News - 2.6m
Doctors - 1.3m
Perfection - 900k
Escape/Country - 1.1m
Tom Kerridge - 900k
Flog It! - 1.9m
Pointess - 3.6m

The same episode of Daybreak last year had 767k (18.5%) excl+1

http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showp...postcount=2731
Breakfast is up year on year btw

People call Breakfast dull but it gets watched. GMB is too flash and light for many. It will appeal to younger people the way a shiny ball appeals to a toddler. There's an audience for that but it's not the only audience there at Breakfast.

GMB is well made but it's lots of things that have been seen before. Even Breakfast used to have desks then ditched them.

Just awful from ITV although Perfection and Tom Kerridge are a little on the low side as well.

And so much do for ITV lunchtime news out ratings breakfast.

God what awful figures for ITV in the afternoons. Paul O' Grady looking like they're only saivour. Although they do seem to start the afternoon off on the wrong foot wit the news at 1:30 30minutes after BBC news starts.

That's poor for the new ITV line-up. Perfection and Tom Kerridge are weak points for BBC1 too.

Liam Hamilton on Twitter reports that a BBC Four documentary about Georgian Britain came third in the 21:00 slot with 1.2m. Fantastic rating.

It was a good show so good ratings is good

The Lucy Worsley effect.

Jo Frost new show seemingly a step in the wrong direction. And you notice ITV's antiques show 1.2m viewers below Flog It.

Whether the demos for ITV's line up are any good and with fewer OAPs watching is anyone's guess, but I suspect they are more profitable than if they were to have BBC1 ratings.

Yep, I for one am eating a big slice of humble pie as I wasn't wholly convinced it would work in boosting it's audience. It certainly has though and I'm glad! Let's hope they can keep it up. With the murder story surely only getting bigger and better, and big stuff for the Carters who up until recently were the centre of the only 8m rating of the year I see no reason why not.

The news bulletins used to go head to head at 1pm but ITV came off second best so had the bulletin at 12.30pm and now at 1.30pm. BBC lunchtime news used to be at 12.30pm followed by Pebble Mill At One. ITV had News At One. Then in 1986 the BBC launched The One O'Clock News as part of their daytime schedule and they beat the ITV bulletin consistently.

Perfection has only ever done around that figure though hasnt it. I think its on too early.